1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to refuse treatment and more particularly to a centrifugal mill for treatment of refuse.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Refuse such as garbage, rubbish, and other solid materials from both domestic and commercial sources has for many years been collected by suitable trucks and transported to disposal locations. The disposal methods most commonly employed are burning of the refuse in suitable incinerating mechanisms and burial thereof in land fill operations.
In recent years, several factors have caused an evaluation of the above described collection and disposal techniques to be made. In the first place, changes in life style, increasing population, and the like have caused increases in the amounts of solid refuse which must be collected and disposed of. It has been estimated that approximately 220 million tons of solid refuse is collected annually in the United States at a cost which has become a tremendous financial burden which the responsible local municipalities are finding increasingly difficult to bear. Other factors of general concern are the well known pollution, health, and odor problems associated with the burning and burying techniques.
The undersirable results and high costs of the above described inefficient and antiquated methods of collection and disposal of refuse along with the wasting of reclaimable materials and the loss of a potential source of energy have spurred a search for new methods of handling such refuse. Many systems and mechanisms have been proposed and built for more efficient handling and disposal of refuse materials with some of those systems designed for the purpose of reclaiming materials, others for the production of methane gas, and still others simply for the purpose of shredding the refuse for more compaction thereof.
In any event, the relatively new systems almost without exception employ some sort of a mill or grinding mechanism for improving the handling characteristics of the refuse. In general, the mills and/or other grinding devices being employed in these newly developed and proposed systems are mechanisms which were originally designed for other purposes such as for pulverizing ore. In many instances, these prior art milling or grinding devices have been employed in the new refuse handling systems in the exact originally developed form and have not been entirely satisfactory due to the fact that they were designed to handle a completely different type of material or materials. In other instances, these prior art milling or grinding devices have been modified somewhat from their original form in an attempt to adapt those devices to the various problems of handling refuse materials, and those modified prior art mechanisms have also not proven entirely satisfactory.
As is well known, solid refuse of the type collected from residential and commercial sources may contain anything such as large cardboard boxes, paper and plastic materials, putricidable food stuffs, metal, glass, cloth, wood, and so forth. The various weights, volumns, sizes, frangibility and the like of such a variety of materials results in problems which were not heretofore encountered in the milling or grinding of specific materials such as ore.
So far as is known to me, no mill or grinding mechanism has been designed or proposed for the express purpose of handling and treating refuse materials. Therefore, in view of the above, a need exists for a new and useful centrifugal mill which is particularly adapted for the handling and treatment of refuse materials.